Monday, 25 October 2010

Sunday, 24 October 2010

Saturday, 23 October 2010

[Apologies for this only being uploaded now, having some frustrating internet issues - hopefully our landlord will sort it soon. Another post to come later today. I did write this out yesterday though, about 2:30AM so apologies again if it's strange.]

A story for today -

This evening I went to a bar to meet some friends and have a drink. This hasn't happened in a while as, in general, places like this make me feel a little strange/uncomfortable (too many people, not enough air) and after a drink and some nice chat, I left for home, alone, as I wanted to do some work before bed and the walls were on me.

I was having a rather pleasant stroll home until, not 10 houses away from my own, on the corner of my street I notice a man asleep half on the curb, half in the road. Face in the concrete and arm bent peculiarly underneath him. Shit, I thought, I suppose I'm going to have to deal with this. After spending about 5 minutes trying to wake the man up, and considering phoning an ambulance or something (I don't know...) I finally managed to obtain an unimpressed grunt from him. Another 5 minutes later and he was sat up. My slumbering friend was clearly not in a good state, there were definitely things other than alcohol coursing through his system. I could tell this, not just from the substances surrounding his mouth or nose or his general demeanour but also from his insistence on knowing whether I had any coke/wanted any coke or could obtain him any coke. We were mates though, as he kept reminding me.

After some nice chat about the state of the economy, what I did, what he did, what my parents did, where we were, something about apprenticeships being the best way for a person to learn a trade, his inability to tell me where he lived so that I could help him home and my inability to roll him a satisfactory cigarette (which led him to believe that I was 'bent', though he then went on to let me know how handsome I was - the hypocrite) a group of unpleasant children came past. It was difficult, but I managed to stop him fighting the children and their appearance had erected him to his feet - which was a plus. We started walking. He reminds me of how handsome I am and how much of a good guy I am. I graciously accept his compliments. At one point he states that he bets that this will probably never happen to me again - I say hopefully not - we both laugh.

We decide that it would probably be best for him to stay with his mate (not me, though we are mates) this evening, so we walk (ish) in the direction of his mate's house. How accurate this direction is, I do not know. We come across one of the children from earlier, the child is a wanker. Also, the child does not have any cigarettes, Es, coke or pills - this makes him even more of a wanker.

Things take a much darker turn as we walk further towards his friends house (and further away from my own) as Owen (this is his name, but I can call him Ow, pronounced Oh, because we are mates) begins to tell me about his friend that died last year. What started out as a slightly amusing situation becomes much more emotionally scarring when he tells me about his friend's problems with addiction which eventually led to his death. He asks me whether I believe in God, I tell him no, he agrees. He is close to tears for a while. I wish for him not to cry and consider just running away.

Eventually we reach a point where I have given up hope of ever finding a house to drop him off at, and he seems much more coherent and happy to carry on his journey alone to his mates house (which is just at the end of this road). This seems like it is probably a suitable time for me depart. I am reminded again how handsome I am and that I am a nice guy. We will probably never see each other again - I say hopefully not - we both laugh. We exchange goodbyes, Owen kisses my hand and we go our separate ways. I run home and scrub my hand with a brillo pad.

Thursday, 21 October 2010

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

I done did the finishing of a drawing. Given that I haven't uploaded a finished image in a while, and I am quite pleased with this one, I thought I'd share. This is a page from a mini-book, of which I only have a few more pages to draw, which hopefully I will have printed and available to purchase within the next few weeks. This was done on an A3 sheet of paper - hence the amount of time it took to complete. Yes.

Sunday, 17 October 2010

Hello. For the last few days I have been in Manchester, visiting my incredible friends Jane and Rowan. I've had a very nice time, but have returned to a slightly ridiculous workload that I will not go into.

We went to Jane's college and a nice outsider art exhibition and saw some taxidermy (only birds as others were being re-homed) and ate too much food and walked a lot and played ball till our hand's bled and saw a man in a bag and played with some rats and didn't buy a Big Issue and listened to a fat, drunk man whistle 'Paradise City' then almost die and played some tense, avant-garde music and listened to Jazz and watched an audience with Celine Dion. It was all very good.

Wednesday, 13 October 2010

When this is all drawn out properly and shaded in I think it might be one of the most complex things I've ever drawn. How very exciting.

I will be traveling to Stockport tomorrow to visit my good friends Jane and Rowan. I will not be returning until Sunday, so it is highly unlikely that I will be updating for the next few days - for this I apologise. If it makes it any better, I'm planning on having a very nice time.

Tuesday, 12 October 2010

Monday, 11 October 2010

Something a little different today, joined in with a life drawing class (the model was fully clothed though, I think they were learning about costume or something, she had a very strong jaw) which I haven't done any of in a while. Kind of didn't do it properly and just drew her face. Quite nice to work a bit looser than how I have been for, what seems to be, months and months.

Friday, 8 October 2010

Been finialising some of the images for the ol' collaboration with the delightful, and extremely patient, Sandra Dieckmann. Having some very annoying scanning and photoshopping issues but they're getting there.

I know I've uploaded these images before - but they are different to the earlier ones. I swear.

Wednesday, 6 October 2010

A sketch for another section of this mini-book thing (I should probably decide what it is). So far, I'm pretty pleased with the images and I'm getting through them fairly quickly - which is always nice.

Today I done learnt how to process film, thanks to the always-there-and-now-pierced-in-the-nose Felipe Pires Dias. These photos, again, are from my new camera, but taken whilst I was back at home so it was nice for some photos of the pup to crop up. I do miss her greatly.

Sunday, 3 October 2010

Some strangeness has happened today. My good friend Felicity Hammond took an alginate cast of me today, for an ongoing project she's been working on, recreating the Pieta. I am Jesus. And my friend Felipe is the hand of the Virgin Mary. This is what it looked like.